EXIT ART ANNOUNCES THE OPENING OF ITS NEW CINEMA VENUE AND FIRST SELECTION OF SCREENING!

LAUNCH PARTY: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011

With Screenings every Wednesday evening/7:30pmBeginning October 5, 2011

NEW YORK-Exit Art is pleased to announce the launch of Digimovies, an ongoing curated showcase of international digital cinema presented in the gallery's brand new movie theater. Beginning October 5, Exit Art will present weekly screenings of digitally produced films from the U.S. and abroad. Programming will cover various cinematic genres (drama/fiction, documentary, non-narrative/experimental) and emphasize the work of emerging directors who are challenging cinematic conventions in provocative and exciting ways. Screenings will regularly include informative in-person and virtual (i.e. Skype) discussions with directors and other guests. In addition to screenings and Q&As, Digimovies will present video production workshops with accomplished directors and video artists.

Screenings, discussions and other events will take place in Exit Art’s intimate Digimovies theater. Located in the gallery’s lower level, the theater joins the Trickster Theater and SEA (Social-Environmental Aesthetics) gallery to further fulfill Exit Art’s role as a dynamic interdisciplinary arts space. The auditorium features a 7’x12’ micro-perforated screen, a 5.1 surround sound audio system and a projection booth that includes a 4,000 lumen 1080p HD projector and decks to show a variety of formats including HDCam, Blu-ray, DigiBeta, BetaSP and DVCam. The room is outfitted with couches to comfortably seat an audience of up to 70 people. Before and after screenings, audiences may enjoy beer, wine and other beverages in the lobby directly outside the theater.

“Three years in the making, Ho’s robust debut film cut from over 350 hours of raw footage offers an intimate rabbit hole journey through a small world tucked deep in the folds of New York City. A timeless story of human flaws and pedestrian wisdom, SUBWAY PREACHER provides a bridge between documentary and narrative cinema, revealing in microcosm a modern day parable.” - No Pictures

“AARDVARK is perhaps the first fiction film to star a man blind since birth. In a role inspired by his own life, Larry Lewis plays a solitary man recovering from alcoholism. When he joins a Jiu-Jitsu academy he becomes friends with his instructor, Darren. But, as Darren’s hidden life is revealed Larry finds himself faced with a horrific act of violence.” - FiGa Films

“A cinephile, Sakurai makes highly original use of his influences – European (especially Fassbinder), Asian and American – and creates a riveting atmosphere, enhanced by superb cinematography.”- Olivier Pere, Locarno International Film Festival

Campy, acerbic and somber, Thai director Sukkhapisit’s debut feature tells the story of a kathoey widow (played by Sukkhapisit) raising her teenage son and daughter while all three come to terms with their sexuality. The film became an object of controversy last year when Thailand’s board of censors banned it from commercial release due to its taboo subject matter and explicit sex scenes.

“Tanwarin finds the roots of family dysfunction in Thai attitudes to sexuality and prostitution, but his sense of framing, colour and pace gives the film larger resonances. Universal ones, in fact.” - Tony Rayns, Vancouver International Film Festival

OXHIDE (October 26)Screening followed by a Q&A with Liu Jiayin
Directed by Liu Jiayin, 2005, 110 min, China, In Mandarin

Considered one of the best debut features of the past decade, Oxhide is a deeply moving portrait of one working-class family’s solidarity under financial duress. Audaciously fusing personal documentary and fiction, director Liu casts her parents and herself as fictionalized versions of themselves and shoots the scripted proceedings in their cramped Beijing apartment. With twenty-three static, tightly framed shots, Liu’s small DV camera magnifies the microscopic details of her family’s daily urban life on a widescreen canvas, giving their story an epic dimension.

“The most important Chinese film of the past several years—and one of the most astonishing recent films from any country.” – Shelly Kraicer, Cinema Scope

“Liu takes the visual language of ‘realism’ in an entirely new direction.” - Tony Rayns, Vancouver International Film FestivalOXHIDE II (Thursday, October 27 at 7:30 PM)
Directed by Liu Jiayin, 2009, 132 min, China, In Mandarin

“Breaking new ground in cinematic art, Liu Jiayin’s follow-up to her masterful debut OXHIDE turns a simple dinner into a profoundly intimate study of family relationships. Liu once again casts herself and her parents in scripted versions of their life in a tiny Beijing apartment. Liu takes her uncompromising artistry to the extreme, setting all of the action around the family dinner table, which doubles as her father’s leather-making station. As the workbench is cleared for the family to make a dinner of dumplings, the camera catches every meticulous detail of the action in real time. Small moments between family members reveal deep insights into the mysteries of family relations and the art of everyday living.” - dGenerate Films

“Rarely does a filmmaker appreciate and explore the complexities of sound and image as equally -- and deeply -- as Leighton Pierce.” - Harvard Film Archive

“I make films and videos that are short experiences in transformative time. I strive to capture an active and immediate emotional state during shooting, often by photographing seemingly mundane activities. In editing, I distill the images to get what I call ‘emotionally charged nodes.’” - Leighton Pierce

SOUND DESIGN WORKSHOP WITH LEIGHTON PIERCE(Saturday, October 5 at 2:00 PM)
Moving image makers are invited to attend a workshop given by Leighton Pierce on the creative uses of sound design in film and video production. $12 general admissionPlease RSVP to Aimee Chan-LindquistHEREPOPULAR UNREST(November 9)Screening followed by a Q&A with Melanie Gilligan
Directed by Melanie Gilligan, 2009, 60 min, Blu-ray, UK/Canada, In English

Inspired by the recent global economic crisis, Melanie Gilligan’s dystopian multi-episode mystery-cum-satire uses a snappy televisual style, physical performances and visceral horror to “explore a world in which the self is reduced to physical biology, directly subject to the needs of capital.”DIRTY OLD TOWN(November 16)Screening followed by a Q&A with filmmakers Furst, Levin, and Nason and select cast members
Directed by Jenner Furst, Daniel Levin and Julia Willoughby Nason, 2010, 90 minutes, HDCam, US, In English

“In this gonzo tone poem, Bowery Billy Leroy has 72 hours to save his star-crossed, Lower East Side junk store from its bitter end. Facing extinction, his ramshackle tent of antiquities lures a troop of misfits, freaks and renegades who form a tableaux full of carnival pageantry, white lies and victimless crime in a fleeting glimpse of Downtown New York.” - Blowback Productions

“A vibrant, visceral portrait of the streets of New York at their most sublime.” - W

“It’s much more street than Mean Streets, and makes Taxi Driver seem like it was shot in Ohio.” - Black Book

Tickets are available for purchase at the box office 30 minutes before each screening or anytime on Exit Art’s website HERE.

ABOUT EXIT ART
Exit Art is an independent vision of contemporary culture. We are prepared toreact immediately to important issues that affect our lives. We do experimental, historical and unique presentations of aesthetic, social, political and environmental issues. We absorb cultural differences that become prototype exhibitions. We are a center for multiple disciplines. Exit Art is a 28-year-old cultural center in New York City founded by Directors Jeanette Ingberman and artist Papo Colo, that has grown from a pioneering alternative art space, into a model artistic center for the 21st century committed to supporting artists whose quality of work reflects the transformations of our culture. Exit Art is internationally recognized for its unmatched spirit of inventiveness and consistent ability to anticipate the newest trends in the culture. With a substantial reputation for curatorial innovation and depth of programming in diverse media, Exit Art is always changing.

EXHIBITION SUPPORTDigimovies is made possible by a major grant from the Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation Fund with additional support provided by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

General exhibition support provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Bloomberg LP; Jerome Foundation; Lambent Foundation; Pollock-Krasner Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn; and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

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